Best Served Cold
by Swing-21
Summary: The Irken Empire has fallen. The Armada is no more. The Tallests, reduced to nothing, are hiding in the remains of the Massive. One man, hungry for revenge, is coming to terminate them. How could have they known a single death would provoke all this?


Best served cold

Rating : PG-13

Warnings: Character Death

Summary : One-shot, drama/suspense, no pairings. The Irken Empire has fallen, the Armada is no more, the Tallest are hiding in the remains of the Massive waiting for their doom.

Disclaimer : It's all Jhonen's.

Author Note : This is angsty. I intended no pairings, but maybe if you squint…

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The Massive was deadly silent. Gone were the drones, the soldiers, the robots. Gone were the snacking days. The most powerful ship of the once fearsome Irken Armada had been abandoned by it's crew just before crash-landing on a now deserted planet. 

In a corner of the main bridge now covered in darkness were two huddled green figures. Their uniforms stained with blood, their armors broken and defective, their paks now useless, their expression tainted with fear, both Tallest curled around one another to share warmth and reassurance in the middle of the cold night.

They knew it wouldn't be long before He came to terminate them both. This night would mark the end of the war that had lasted for more than twenty years.

Who would have thought that Earth would be such a dangerous foe?

Thinking back about it all, they now realized the fatal mistake they'd made. Everything was going fine while Earth had been under "subtle" invasion. Zim was being an incompetent fool, but that was expected. At first, they had blamed Zim for the war, but with the Invader dead for years, it was now impossible to blame him for all the pain and destruction suffered by the Irken forces.

It was a death that started it all. It was unplanned, it was messy, it was unfair. A life taken too soon. A life that no one had cared about until it was gone forever.

One calm spring day, a man appeared in the news. He was tall and serious, his eyes hidden behind protective goggles, clad in a white lab-coat, his black hair like a lightning bolt sprouting from his head. Behind him stood an armor clad purple-haired woman, the leader of security at Membrane's enterprises.

People watched their televisions with rapt attention, listening to the most intelligent man on Earth talk about an alien race called "Irkens". He showed them pictures and videos, he told them about their strength and weaknesses, he talked about an Invasion. His voice was thick with emotion, trying to keep everything inside, and when journalists asked where he took the information, he lowered his head and said he'd rather not talk about it.

But people listened to him. He was the smartest scientist on Earth, after all. This was no mere paranormal blabbering from the mouth of an eleven years old social failure. This was their hero, their savior, warning them about impeding annihilation.

A war council was immediately created with the strongest and smartest leaders from all countries. For once, Earth nations united to fight the same foe. The access they had on alien technology helped humans to gain incredible firepower in a very short time. In a time span of five years, they had achieved light speed travel.

So when the Armada actually arrived to Earth, humans were ready to fight back. It was a massacre on both sides. Irken learned that day that humans were as bloodthirsty as they were. Even more, now that they were technologically matched. The Massive escaped in extremis, going back to the nearest station to get repairs and supplies.

They never expected the humans to chase them.

Twenty years it lasted. Not happy with liberating Earth, the humans started to destroy everything that was remotely Irken. They met the Meekrob race and struck a powerful and deadly alliance with the immaterial beings. Now armed with Meekrob powers, the Earthians were the strongest race of the galaxy.

They fought Irkens on every front. They liberated planet after planet, placing them under the Universe Union flag. The lightning bolt, inspired by their savior's hair, became their symbol of freedom. Soon, the Irken Empire lost Foodcourtia, Callnowia, Hobo13, Conventia, Devastis… Soon, there was just Irk left.

That was a massacre.

It took seven years of siege to get to the end of this. Ships from all points of the universe surrounded the red planet, shooting everything that attempted to leave it. Teleportation beams were distorted, losing the escapee's atoms in the void of space, never to be recovered. But any Union's ship approaching the Irken shooting range was blown up to pieces. Once or twice, warships managed to land, but their crew was chopped up to pieces by those civilians that learned to fight in the tubes they were created. It all seemed endless.

Until the Universe Union got a hold of the Sweeper canon technology.

The Massive had been orbiting very near the planet for years, ready to shoot down any ship that came too close. The Tallest and the crew had watched with horror as the bright bolt descended upon their home planet and erased all life on it.

Then there was chaos.

Not happy with destroying the last of Irken territory, the Universe Union had to shoot down the last of Irken life too. The Massive fell towards its now deserted home planet, the crew fleeing in escape pods easily shot down. None stayed with their Tallest, the leaders meaning nothing anymore.

The Massive had crashed on the deserted planet in an horrible sound of scrapped metal. The Tallest barely survived, knowing that He was coming soon to finish them himself.

The silence was deafening. Hours passed and nothing happened. With their paks damaged, they had no heat regulation. They shivered, close to each other, breathing too loudly in the emptiness of their ship.

Then, they heard the footsteps.

Purple whimpered and closed his eyes. Red tried to comfort him, but he was frozen in absolute terror. He saw the tall silhouette appear in the doorway. The hated lightning-bolt shaped hair. The unfeeling goggles. The long piece of clothing he always wore. But gone was the laboratory white. The human had taken to wear black. Fitting.

Red knew he was too weak to stand, so he did the next best thing. He glared. The human answered by an amused chuckle.

'You aliens fight until the very end' he commented in a deep and cruel voice. 'Look what it has done to your species.'

'You were the one that exterminated us all!' snapped Red with a croaking voice.

'Total elimination was the only way to deal with the Irken tumor!' spat the human.

'…Why destroy Irk?' asked Purple in a fear loaded voice. 'You could have enslaved us, or…'

'Oh no' grinned the human. 'I had to kill every single one of you. And most especially you two.'

He took a step forward. His hands started to glow with a blue light that made creepy shadows on what was seen of his face.

'…But why?' asked Purple.

'You took someone from me' growled the human. 'I should have listened to him, when he asked for help. But I turned him off, believing he was crazy.'

He pointed a glowing hand towards them.

'I regret not believing him when I had the chance' he told them. 'But at least, I can avenge his death.'

He took off his goggles and watched them with hate and contempt in his amber eyes.

'That was for killing Zim' he growled, and fired.

Both Tallest fell to the floor, dead. There were the last of Irken resistance, the last of Irken life in the universe. This marked the end of a seven years long siege, a twenty years long war, centuries of enslaved planets and a lifetime grudge.

Dib stood alone in the silent Massive, on the now deserted Irk, waiting for something. But the joy never came. Only an empty feeling, now that his last obsession was over.

He'd have to go back and tell them that they'd won. They would cheer, celebrate, congratulate him. They would call him a hero, a savior. He snorted. He wasn't any of this. He was just a messed up kid, who grew up to be a messed up adult, obsessed with the avenging of his once childhood nemesis. He'd find a way to escape the crowd, maybe he'd ask Gaz to play bodyguard again. She hadn't done it since she appointed herself captain of his fleet, but her deadly glare could and had managed to terrorize many planets into submission.

Dib looked at the Tallest one last time and walked out of the Massive, wondering what he'd do with his free time now that the Universe was safe again.

THE END

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Author's Note: This was weird. But I like it. If I managed to convince you it was Prof Membrane, I'm happy. 

Why the lab coat? I'm placing this in a universe where Dib had let go of his paranormal studies to follow in his dad's footsteps and become the leader of Membrane's Enterprises. When Zim, sensing that his Tallest wanted to kill him, asked for his help, Dib turned him away. He lived to regret it. I think he realized too late that his mission to save Earth and his obsession with Zim defined him. Like the saying goes, you never know what you have until it's too late…


End file.
